Becoming Tom Thumb. Eric D. Lehman
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as well as to the north and east. Detail of original from the Library of Congress.
Charles’s siblings were all of average height, and in fact he seems to have been notable as the only “dwarf” in town. Later accounts by Bridgeporters mention memories of the small boy at this time, sitting on the wagon with the local “Dutch Baker,” Henry Seltsem, on his route selling buns, or accompanying his mother to the Daniel Sterling House while she cleaned. As his first four years of life passed, he remained the same height and weight, though he grew more mobile and more intelligent, learning to speak and walk, to jump and play. He was not yet five years old, when in November 1842, he met the man who would change his life.
Born on July 5, 1810, north of Bridgeport in Bethel, Phineas Taylor Barnum spent his childhood on the family farm, but soon after decided to get out of this line of work. Taking a job as a clerk in a country store, he quickly moved on to lottery promotion. When he found himself alone when his father died in 1825, he moved to New York to work, and then returned to Bethel to open a fruit and confectionery store with his grandfather. He ran more lotteries, and at age nineteen married a twenty-one-year-old-year-old tailoress named Charity Hallett. He started a newspaper, the Herald of Freedom, and was jailed briefly for libel. According to Barnum himself, it was his triumphant victory over his accusers and the resulting parade with supporters that clued him in to the power of pageantry.4
Barnum’s first experience as an entertainment impresario came with Joice Heth, an aged, blind slave who claimed (or was claimed) to be one hundred and sixty-one years old, and the nurse of a young George Washington. She was terribly thin and frail but a great talker, and could discourse of “dear little George” and sing archaic hymns. Barnum asked for proof of her age, and was given amongst other evidence an ancient bill of sale from 1727, at which time “Joice Heth” was stated to be fifty-four years old. No doubt Barnum knew this was all a deceit, but the evidence would be enough for the audience only to briefly hesitate in disbelief. He sold his interest in his grocery store, bought the woman’s contract, advertised her throughout New York, and made a healthy profit. They toured New England until she died in February, 1836, at which time a doctor pronounced her no more than eighty years old. The New York Sun declared the whole thing “one of the most precious humbugs that ever was imposed upon a credulous community.”5
Barnum left plenty of room for doubt in the public’s minds, though, with the very logical statement, “If Joice Heth was an imposter, who taught her these things? And how happened it that she was so familiar, not only with ancient psalmody, but also with the minute details of the Washington family?” He had found his calling, and over the next few years managed an amazing juggler named “Signor Antonio,” promoted a blackface dancer named John Diamond, hawked a balding cure, and acted as a ticket-seller, treasurer, and secretary for the Old Columbian Circus.6
But perhaps his most memorable humbug came with the “Fejee Mermaid,” a strange half-fish, half-monkey cobbled together in a taxidermy shop. In the summer of 1842 Barnum rented this Fejee Mermaid from Moses Kimball of Boston and perpetuated an elaborate hoax in the papers in which he built up the public’s appetite for weeks to see this “mermaid,” fooling newspapers into promoting this curiosity in an elaborate ruse worthy of the most cunning media manipulators.7 This trickery would become a fundamental element of the popular entertainment industry in later years, used in magic acts, circus sideshows, photographs, and films. But it was not ignorance that brought spectators into the seats; it was the very question of authenticity itself. People consistently questioned if these exhibitions were indeed humbugs, and if so, how they were achieved.8 Barnum had already become a master of creating these questions for a curious public, and was simultaneously creating the market for them. He also knew how to promote the unusual and the bizarre. So, when the Hudson River froze over in November 1842, and he was forced to take the rattling Housatonic Railroad down to Bridgeport, he was very interested to meet the miniature boy everyone was talking about.
In later years, various people claimed to have a part in this historic meeting. The wife of the tavern-keeper at the Daniel Sterling House, Theodosia Fairchild, professed to have known Charles and Cynthia well, and been instrumental in bringing them to the world’s attention. According to her, she had been at choir practice and heard the rumor that Barnum was in town, though he was hardly so famous at this point that it would have stirred gossip. She says that she encouraged Cynthia, who worked with her, to allow “Charlie” to meet the showman, and that the boy even wore a blue velvet suit she had made for him. In her version, she acted as a mediator with the showman’s half-brother Philo Fairchild Barnum, the proprietor of the Franklin House, a rival hotel. Philo came to the Stratton’s house on Main Street, though apparently he had never seen Charles before, unlikely in such a small town. Cynthia needed to be convinced, but both she and Sherwood finally went over to the Franklin House to meet P. T.9 However, Theodosia was not the only one who made a claim to arranging the famous meeting. Three years after Charles’s death, a New Yorker named Henry Folsom claimed to have been drinking buddies with Sherwood Stratton, and also acquainted with the showman and his brother Philo. Acting as a go-between he told Barnum of this small boy not “bigger than a pint of cider,” who would be perfect for the new museum. According to him, Barnum took his advice and went up to see the child.10 Others made similar claims, all no doubt wanting to be part of the incredible story of Tom Thumb, and no doubt many had a grain of truth in them.
Barnum himself credited his older half-brother exclusively. Philo’s claim is supported by the fact that he solicited or perhaps threatened Barnum that he was owed “half the money” for introducing him to Charles, or more specifically to his profitable abilities. Later, this uncomfortable family situation would nearly prevent the showman from settling in Bridgeport, despite his wife’s wishes.11 Whatever the case, P. T. Barnum and Charles Stratton met in the smoky dining room at the Franklin House, and the showman was suitably impressed. The small boy had dark, twinkling eyes, framed with “light hair and ruddy cheeks.” His voice was a “piping” treble.” Though not yet five years old, he seemed intelligent and ate heartily. At first he seemed bashful around this stranger, but after encouragement talked enough to convince the showman that he was not dim-witted.12
Barnum already knew that physical oddities could sell tickets for the New York museum he had recently purchased, and that “giants and dwarfs” who were otherwise suitably proportioned were amongst the biggest draws. However, he noted that “I felt that the venture was only an experiment, and I engaged him for four weeks at three dollars a week.”13 Barnum also knew from bitter experience with performer John Diamond that no matter what the “drawing” power of any given live display, the success depended not only on the act, but on the personality and the temperament of the performer.
The Stratton house where Charles was born stood on Main Street near the center of Bridgeport, at a time when it was a small village. Drawing by Rudolph Pirhala. Courtesy of the Bridgeport History Center.
Charles was hardly the first little person to perform on the American scene. However, in the 1700s none became famous beyond limited regions, except one “dwarf child” also renamed Tom Thumb. This child, whose real name was Calvin Phillips, toured New England and New York from 1798 to at least 1801. Calvin was advertised in much the same way as Charles, as “handsome, and well proportioned,” but unfortunately for him was not taught more than “childish amusements.” A duo that became somewhat well known, the “Clarke Dwarfs,” Caroline and Edward, were thirty-six inches high and accomplished singers. However, like Calvin Phillips, spectators found them to be “infantile.” Joseph Stevens, also called Tom Thumb or “Major” Stevens, achieved minor fame in the northeast during the 1830s, though he was a full four feet high.14 He was still working part-time at the New York museums when Charles Stratton arrived in the city and took his job and name in dramatic fashion.
The first steamboat to connect Bridgeport and New York had been the Fulton in 1815, replaced seven years later by the General Lafayette, named in honor of the Marquis’s visit to the city. By 1842 the Nimrod was one of several ships steaming through Long Island Sound, and Barnum and the Strattons